Vision and Blindness
by Jedi Boadicea
Summary: Tousen Kaname is blind, but he sees his goal very clearly. A short introspective look into what motivates a man unaware of his own ironies. See author page for spoiler warnings.


_Author's Note: Umm… yes, I know, it's not the next chapter of Frozen Sky. But I have to go with inspiration when it comes, or it might never visit again. _

_A good familiarity with chapter 148 of the manga is helpful in reading this story, since for some unfathomable reason the anime decided to cut the most important part of Tousen's history from the narrative. I mean … ? _

**VISION AND BLINDNESS**

Tousen Kaname does not believe in irony.

Irony, he feels, is only indulgence, a label, the use of which allows people who are too afraid to see the world as it really is an escape from truth. In the same way that another man might have used physical blindness as an excuse to ignore the ugliness of the world, other men use irony as a way of pretending that events have not played out solely as a consequence of their choices.

Men are responsible for the ugliness around them. Refusing to call it by its name, to claim that responsibility, is a far greater handicap than blindness. Blindness, after all, only clouds the senses. Choosing to abjure responsibility for one's ugliness clouds the spirit.

Tousen does not consider himself a blind man. He is merely a man without sight.

He is also, as he came to realize after meeting Aizen Sousuke, a man without a vision.

Tousen Kaname has chosen his path. His path began at her coffin, and it will end at her grave. When he goes there for the final time, it will be to tell her that he has created a world where men like her husband no longer exist.

He has no memory of her face. He doesn't need one. He remembers her voice, and the touch of her hand, and the softness of her hair against his skin as the breeze blew between them. He remembers her soul. That is all he needs to remember.

And what he cannot remember, Suzumushi does.

Suzumushi does not speak to him often. It took many years before Suzumushi spoke to him at all. His are not the hands that first summoned Suzumushi into the world, that first woke the sword's fighting spirit. He does not blame the blade for ignoring him for so long, for demanding a price in years of sweat before joining him. His hands are not as soft as hers were, his voice not as enticing.

He knows it was not for his words or his soul that Suzumushi finally deigned to speak with him. It was for his promise to make a world in which her memory would be honored and her ignoble death avenged that Suzumushi spoke to him at last.

They walk this path together.

But it was only on meeting Aizen Sousuke that they could see an _end_ to the path at last.

Tousen Kaname does not believe in irony.

Another man might have spared grim amusement – a pale imitation of indulgence in irony, in weakness – for the circumstances that joined his path with Aizen's. Only the blind man can avoid being deceived. Only the blind man can see clearly enough to recognize that Aizen's path leads to the end of struggle. When even those who rule over death are corrupted by injustice, then only from Heaven can things be set right.

Aizen understands the power of illusion as well as he does because he is a man with vision. He is a master of sight. He sees his own goals. He sees his own path. He knows what others see, and how to make them see what they wish. It is easier, he tells Tousen, to let people see what they want. Men are selfish beings, he says. They will always choose to see what they wish over what actually is.

Tousen is blind, and because of this, he sees nothing at all. His wishes of sight do not matter. He sees only what is.

And because he is blind, he does not need to know the shape of the illusions that Aizen Sousuke weaves. Aizen's illusions merely sort the righteous from the confused. Those willing to see the world as it truly is would not be deceived by excuses, by emotions, by what their eyes tell them.

Tousen has no desire to rule.

He is content to be the executor of justice.

Justice is not blind. Justice is a sword with a sharp edge and a clear path, wielded by a steady hand, guided by a man who need not use his eyes to recognize ugliness.

Suzumushi does not like the taste of blood. Suzumushi is a piece of his soul, because he has given his soul to _her_ memory, and the zanpakutou has accepted his promise. Because he is blind, Suzumushi has learned to wrap the world in darkness. Because he does not raise his voice, Suzumushi sings softly in the night until enemies sleep. He does not know if this is the same Suzumushi who once knew the softer grip of her hands. Nor does he worry himself with wondering. They understand each other, he and his sword. To spend time doubting would merely be an excuse to dally on the road to destiny.

He is not afraid to walk that road, because at the end is her grave, and by then he will have earned the right to stand there with an unbowed head.

He is blind, and once, as a younger man, he stumbled on many roads. Not for lack of sight, but for lack of vision.

Aizen Sousuke has given him a vision.

Tousen is blind, but blindness has not made him a fool. Aizen sheds blood, but some men are meant to die. The day you don't approve of my choice to kill, Aizen tells him, I hope you will step in front of my sword. Aizen does not attempt to deceive him; he speaks in double meanings, and Tousen knows this.

It does not change the path.

If men blind themselves to the true ugliness of their lives and their choices, then one with the willingness to see clearly must pass judgement on them.

That willingness is righteousness.

Tousen believes this.

In the nights, dark as day, when he sits alone and feels the wind like memory like the ends of her hair like butterfly wings like breath and life against his skin, he listens to Suzumushi chiming songs in stillness, and reminds himself that she would not have died in a world where all was as it should be.

And so, he will fix it.

He will fix it.

He will fix it.

She will see him and smile, as she always did, though he has never seen it.

She will say his name.

Kaname.

Kaname.

Kaname.

The clouds have all gone, Kaname.

Once, though he had been too timid to say it, he had liked the shade the clouds provided from the sun's warmth. He could feel shade, even if he could not see it.

Now, he is not afraid to face the sun. To face the sun requires determination, and he has it. It means abandoning the fear of fire, and he has no fear. She was gentleness, and healing, and she ought to have been given the world, but someone else would have to _make _it first, to carve it from the ugliness that other men create.

Now, the only shade in which he walks is Aizen Sousuke's shadow.

Because Aizen is walking a path that will give Tousen the power to _be _justice.

Suzumushi sings in the night, even in the night of Hueco Mundo, and Tousen promises again, with every chime, with every rivulet of blood along the blade, that each cry and each red execution is one step closer to peace.

He believes this.

Tousen Kaname does not, yet, believe in irony.

He is blind, and was not able to see her crying.


End file.
